Capitalism a love Store: Michael Moore

Source: Speak Up 

Language Level: Proficiency

Standard: American accent

Speakers: Jason Bermingham and Chuck Rollando

MICHAEL MOORE

CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORE

Michael Moore Capitalism and Me

MICHAEL MOORE

CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORE

Michael Moore Capitalism & Me

For the last 20 years, Michael Moore’s documentaries have exposed –in a tragicomic way – the disturbing side of the American dream. His First film, Roger & Me, was released in 1989 and it showed the disastrous effects on his home town, Flint, Michigan, when the General Motors factory closed. He has since examined the fully of American’s love of guns, in Bowling for Columbine (2002), of the so-called war on terror, in Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), and the lack of health insurance in Sicko (2007). His latest film, Capitalism: A Love Story, which hit theaters in 2009 and is now out on DVD, focuses on Wall Street. when Moore met with the Press, he was asked who loves who in the movie:

MONEY, MONEY, MONEY

Michael Moore

(Standard American accent)

Capitalists love their money and they not only love their money, they love our money! The upper 1 percent, who have more financial wealth than the bottom 95 per cent! I mean, seriously, when anthropologists dig us up, what do you think they’re going to call that? Seriously, what do you think they’re going to cal us? There’s a name for it. We wouldn’t like the name, we would never use the name right now, but they’ll have a name for us, and I have a good idea what it is, when they see that the 95 per cent were essentially beholden to the 1 per cent. So, the rich love their money and they love our money and they want our money and they could never get enough. It’s the dirtiest word in capitalism, is “enough.” There’s no such thing as enough. They want more and more. It’s like a beast and you have to stop the beast and that’s why ate end, I said you can’t regulate the beast. You really have to put a stake in its heart…as long as we have an economic system that is not democratic and that’s what I’m calling for, a democratic economic system, that…where you and I have a say in how this economy is run. That’s all I’m asking for, that we just apply the democracy that we love to our economy.

GOLDMAN SAHS

One of the features of the financial collapse of 2008 was that Lehman Brother, a rival to the powerful investment bank, Goldman Sachs, was essentially eliminated. Other banks were rescued with vast sums of money and they later paid back their loans. Did this mean that capitalism was now “back on track?”

Michael Moore:

Some of these banks have so-called “repaid” – they…they took this money from us and then had it for seven, nine months, or whatever. I mean, if you give me $20 billion, like Goldman Sachs, I’m not an investor, but I’ll bet you I could do something with $ 20 billion and nine months later, you know, but the unemployment rate went up again this month, the foreclosure rate continues to be extremely high. These are the real things that affect real people, not that…the fact that the stock market now is back over 9000 and Goldman Sachs is posting records profits and, as you said, they brilliantly helped to eliminate the competitions, so that they have now essentially a Soviet-style investment firm. It’s always…it’s got me about how, in terms of how those who call themselves capitalists actually admire the Soviet system of no competition, no choice, and eliminate everything in your path.

PROPAGANDA

For much of his career Moore has been a hate figure for the American right, and several health insurance firms accused him of inaccuracy in Sicko. Yet Obama’s healthcare reform proposals also seem to have angered many Americans. There have been protests at town hall meetings all over the country. Moore was asked what he thought of this:

Michael Moore:

As far as the crazy, angry people at this town hall meetings, while it’s true that was well-organized and well-financed by the industry, and you should have no misconceptions about that, and if you don’t believe that they do those sorts of things, you just need to get a transcript of the Bill Moyers show, from  July (2009), where the Vice President of CIGNA health insurance went public and told the story on how the health insurance industry put up money and got together to have a campaign to smear me and Sicko, and how to tell lies about Sicko, and his name was Wendell Potter, and you should look it up on the internet and it’s a stunning sort of admission of how they identify journalists, to sort of feed things to the journalists they believe will just kind of start repeating the same old, same old line, that if you repeat it enough, it just becomes truth, I’ve experienced that ever since, I mean, Roger & Me, when General Motors had a little packet that they would send to journalists, trying to discredits me and the film, but to really hear one of their own explain how they do this, it’s an amazing thing to see. And so when I saw those…the mobs at the town hall meetings, I…I thought, well I’m not surprised by this. They’re very good at this: that’s why they usually win!